American Airlines had stated that the issue — a clerical error, it says — has not forced them to cancel any holiday flights.( iStock)

American Airlines announced Friday that it had reached an agreement with its pilots union to avoid the cancellation of millions of flights this holiday season that were left without cockpit gangs due to a scheduling error.

“By working together, we can assure clients that among the many anxieties of the season, worrying about a canceled flight won’t be one of them, ” the airline said in a statement. “In short-lived, if Santa is flying, so is American.”

According to the Allied Pilots Association( APA ), the flaw had left more than 15,000 flights without a captain, co-pilot or both between Dec. 17 and Dec. 31 at dozens of airports. The organization accused a “failure within the captain schedule dictate system” that allowed too many captains to request vacation during the same time period.

By Thursday, nonetheless, American Airlines had stated that the issue — which it called a clerical error, — was altering “only a few hundred” flights. The airline significantly stated that they apply a great number of reservation pilots in December, many of whom will be crowding in for “trips “that theyre” uncovered.”

The APA had quarrelled that demand, saying that data from American’s scheduling system still evidenced “thousands” of flights without full crews.

Airline spokesman Matt Miller said the system viewed by the union does not register flights that American expects to fill with reservation aviators until the day before the flight. He said the airline holds a larger number of aviators on reserve in December than other months, and it will also use overtime to entice other aviators to labour the unstaffed flights.

Meanwhile, the “jobs” section of the American Airline website currently boasts a itemize for a new Director, Crew Scheduling. But even though the post’s time speaks Nov. 28, such other representatives for the airline tells Fox News that the opening is “entirely unrelated” to the recent scheduling problem, and preferably an older affixing from early November “that was reposted after the Thanksgiving holiday.”